This invention relates to instant-cooking pasta products, that is, pasta products which may be rehydrated for consumption by contact with hot water for a short period of time, typically within 3 minutes or less. More particularly, the invention relates to a process for producing pasta products having a porous cellular structure which enables the products to be readily rehydrated upon contact with hot water without loss of integrity or firmness.
Conventional pasta products such as noodles, macaroni and spaghetti are prepared by adding water to a starch component such as semolina, farina or flour and kneading the mixture into a homogeneous dough which is then extruded or rolled into the desired shape and dried. Since such products are not cooked during manufacture, in order to prepare the pasta for consumption it must be cooked in boiling water for about 8 minutes or longer in order to fully hydrate and gelatinize the starch therein.
In recent years a number of procedures have been proposed for making quick-cooking pasta products. For example, one type of instant noodles currently marketed is prepared by kneading a mixture of a starch component and water to form a homogeneous dough which is rolled into sheets. The sheets are cut into noodles which are then steamed and fried in hot oil. During deep fat frying, water in the noodles is flashed off, thereby providing the noodles with a porous structure. While this procedure is effective in producing noodles which may be rehydrated for consumption in a short period of time, typically 5 minutes in boiling water, it suffers from the disadvantage that the noodles absorb a considerable amount of oil during the frying step. The noodles thus produced have an undesirably high calorie content and have a propensity for rancid, off-flavor development in storage.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,234,617 discloses the production of instant cooking noddles by including in the dough a hydrolyzate of a starch derived from the root or stalk of a plant having a D.E. of 1-10. In accordance with this procedure the dough is kneaded, rolled into sheets, cut into strips, steamed and dried.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,243,689 discloses a process for producing instant cooking noodles in which a starch-water mixture is formed into a web which is steamed, subjected to preliminary drying to reduce the moisture content of the web to 15-35%, the web is cut into noodles, and the resulting noodles are further dried to reduce their moisture content to below 10%. This final drying step is said to produce a porous texture in the noodles, which enables the noodles to be readily rehydrated.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,271,205 discloses a process for preparing instant cooking noodles in which steamed wet noodles are dried in superheated steam whereby the noodles develop a porous internal structure which enables them to be readily rehydrated.
Other procedures for producing instant cooking noodles are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,044,165 which discloses an extrusion process; 3,615,677; 3,482,993; 3,192,049; and 4,243,690.
While each of these prior art procedures is capable of producing pasta products which can be prepared in consumption in shorter periods of time, these processes suffer from one or more disadvantages which adversely affect their use in commercial production operations and/or the properties of the product upon rehydration.